Tualla sat amongst the clouds, high above the capital city of Lissura, Zolis. She carefully observed the ongoings of the people she swore to protect. But her oath only allowed her to protect her region against threats at Master Tier or above.

Bound to her oath, she was forced to watch as a young woman was dragged into an alley and beaten to death, her broken body put on display for all to see when the sun rose. Her only crime, being able to use Shadow Magic. The woman did not even use her magic all that often. There was no need to manipulate Shadows as a Seamstress.

But she could use it, and according to these zealots, that was all the excuse they needed to kill her.

As a Demi God, she was sworn to protect, not interfere. Her beautiful dress moved with the wind. It was the color of the forest, and it carried its scent.

All she would need to do to stop this pointless conflict was show herself and denounce the violence. But she was forbidden.

Forbidden from revealing herself or matters regarding Demi Gods or the ‘Higher Matters’. Matters such as the Gods, Great Beasts, Demons, or the War.

Despite the constant activities of the mortals, it was easy to grow bored with them after a few centuries of constant vigil. The Saint’s arrival was the most exciting thing to happen to Tualla’s area in a long time. But she wished he never came.

The man claimed to be a messenger of the Gods, and the Demi Gods had no way to know if he spoke the truth or not. So, Evros had decided to simply leave him be and not interfere.

Tualla knew that Duke Redmond suspected the Saint to be responsible for the violence and hate brewing in Zolis, he simply could not prove it. She wished she could tell him. Tell him how right and wrong he was. It was not the Saint causing the violence, at least not directly.

Magic was a powerful thing that infused all things, including emotion and thought. If someone practiced one Magic for long enough, and grew proficient enough in it, then their body would begin to absorb that Magic naturally. This often led to personality changes in the person, not that it would be noticeable as usually when a person became that proficient in a certain Magic, their thoughts and emotions were already quite similar.

Sir Castiel’s thoughts and emotions were so similar to the Holy Magic he practiced, that his Magic was spilling out of his body. And like a sickness, the loose and dense magic attached itself to whoever was nearby, infecting them. Of time, if the infected were not proficient enough in another type of Magic, they began to be changed by infecting Magic.

To Tualla’s knowledge, Sir Castiel did not know about this aspect of his own Magic. If he did, he likely would figure out ways to weaponize it even further.

Earth Magic made people more stubborn and planted in their thoughts and beliefs. Fire Magic made people more volatile and spontaneous. Water Magic made people calmly go with the flow of things. Wind Magic made people light in their thoughts and adventurous.

Holy Magic on the other hand, despite its name being related to the Divine, was not actually related. Holy Magic was a Magic of protection and cleansing. The protections it could offer were alright, but there were certainly other Magics better suited.

However, when it came to cleansing areas of filth and that which is unnatural, Holy Magic is unparalleled. When faced against Curses, Hexes, Psyonic, Blood Rituals, or Necromancy, Holy Magic is the best to combat it. However, because one of Holy Magic’s core attributes are cleansing, and it actively seeks to do its duty, it slowly changes a person’s thoughts, as any other Magic.

Holy Magic is one of the few that actively seeks to destroy. Most people think it’s a benevolent Magic that only seeks to protect and nourish, but those people know too little about it.

Holy Magic does not care about anything but the Unnatural Magics, and it only seeks to destroy those. It does not care what the Unnatural Magics are doing or supporting, it will eradicate any hint of it and ignore the rest.

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Many assume Necrotic Magic was cruel and evil, but Necrotic Magic only harnesses Death. There can be no life without Death, and there can be no Death without Life. Necrotic Magic merely changes the natural flow of Life and Death temporarily. Necromancy merely gives back its own crude mimicry of Life.

Sir Castiel, so infused with Holy Magic, he does not even see those of these so called ‘Dark Magics’ as people. He only sees them as vermin to be exterminated. He was so in tune with his Magic that it practically possessed him.

Unfortunately, one of the key differences between Masters and Demi Gods, besides pure raw power, was the ability to move past their Magic’s natural disposition. Had Sir Castiel been able to do so, he would have been capable of possessing a seed of divinity.

Tualla was still a comparatively young Demi God. She had not been around when Sir Castiel had been born.

Back then, countless generations before, Sir Castiel had merely been a young boy living in a small town that worshiped Anera, Goddess of Life and Order. Those times had been chaotic. The Gods had fought off the Demons, it should have brought peace and tranquility, but instead of working together to better the lives of the mortals that worshipped them, they began to fight and bicker amongst each other.

This conflict, that never escalated into a full war, inspired the worshippers to also fight. Roaming bands of devote believers of one God would attack and raid settlements of another God’s believers. Most of the time, the Gods did not care about the mortals who believed themselves to be acting according to their God’s wishes. They merely acted on their own accord.

When a large band of followers, worshipping Ebris, God of the Dead, attacked the town of Sir Castiel when he was still just a boy, killing his family and raising them up to serve as Undead Minions. Sir Castiel had to watch his family die twice. Once to the Raiders, and once more to the Defenders.

When the Raiders were driven off, Sir Castiel was orphaned and alone. The Paladin order of Anera in his hometown took him in and trained him, he devoted himself to her, or more presicely, he devoted himself to the eradication of ‘Dark Magic’.

He had been raised as a devote worshipper of the Gods, as a child, he was incapable of blaming the Gods, but also too ignorant to blame the people who had actually killed his family. Instead, he blamed the Magic, believing that it was the Magic that caused the people to kill his family.

As he matured, those thoughts stayed with him, solidifying themselves as his core beliefs. At first he attempted to teach people to forsake these ‘Dark Magics’, but no one was foolish enough to give up their best defense against the Monsters that still plagued the world. Their Magic was their sword and shield against those that wished them harm, it just so happened that the Magic they learned and practiced were the ones the boy proclaimed as evil.

When that didn’t work, Sir Castiel, now a young man, attempted to strip people of their Magic. He thought that if he could remove Dark Magic from them, they would see the ‘light’. But research into removing someone’s Magic drew attention from everyone, Light or Dark, and Sir Castiel found himself the target of everyone, including the Paladin Order that took him in.

Finally, he came to the conclusion that the only way to remove ‘Dark Magic’, was to eradicate all practitioners, teachings, histories, and mention of ‘Dark Magic’. His thoughts and devotion to Holy Magic quickly allowed him to gain a substantial following.

And so began the Holy War. Decades passed as the war waged. Everywhere his army went, they executed anyone who practiced ‘Dark Magic’, framing them for their own atrocities, and destroying all history and teachings.

Gradually, those opposing the War grew in number and power. He faced more and more defeats, being forced into retreating. Slowly, his mighty crusade was surrounded in the lands, their allies turning their backs on them.

Seeing no victory, his crusaders began to sink away, hiding away from their relation to Sir Castiel’s Crusade in hopes that when their enemies pressed forward, they would overlook them.

Sir Castiel, left with only a few remaining allies, but finding himself surrounded by hordes of those that opposed his belief, did the only thing he could think of. He buried himself deep in the earth and used his Holy Magic to encase himself in pure Marble.

Without his presence, his crusade fell apart.

Years passed and his name fell from the history books. Decades passed and his belief fell out of favor. Centuries passed and the Holy War became mere legend.

But Sir Castiel’s Magic had not been idle while he was encased in Marble. His Magic was constantly searching. When it detected a powerful source of ‘Dark Magic’, Sir Castiel awoke.

Now, Tualla watched as the strongest user of Holy Magic and the strongest user of Necrotic Magic in history grew closer and closer to blows. She watched, unaware of just how crucial this conflict would be.

But she was not the only Demi God watching.

Evros stood among the clouds, but his eyes were not on the city as a whole, but instead on a single young woman, a woman with the potential to destroy all of his several century plans.

A woman he would have to eliminate.